I believe women, not just fetuses,
have a right to life and liberty and that Roe vs.
Wade correctly and morally balanced the right to
life and liberty of both.

I decided to form Life
and Liberty for Women because I am terrified
that women once again will have to face the devastating
consequences of illegal abortion and I believe that
legal abortion has never been in as much jeopardy
as it is today.

I have spent the last
ten years working to keep abortion safe and legal
in this country. I have written dozens of letters
to the editor and op-

ed pieces, publicly debated anti-abortion
rights individuals, spoke at rallies, and testified
before Colorado State House Committees on abortion
bills. I have worked candidate campaigns including
Co-Coordinating the 1992 U.S. Senate race of Senator
Patty Murray in Washington state in the county I
lived in. I have also worked feverishly on several
abortion issue campaigns, and spent four years,
1994-1998 as a member of the Board of Directors
of Colorado NARAL (National Abortion and Reproductive
Rights Action League). Colorado NARAL taught me
a lot about the abortion rights issue and organizing
to protect abortion rights.

I am forty-something and the mother
of two daughters. I believe every woman has a right
to make her own reproductive decisions based on
her own set of moral and religious values. I do
not believe that anyone else should make such a
decision for a woman including legislators or Christian
anti-abortion extremists. Without a right to make
her own decision about how many children she'll
have and when she'll have them, no woman can make
a quality life for herself or her family. And, without
access to any and all resources to effect a decision
about when and how many children she'll have, from
contraceptives to adoption to safe abortion, a woman
cannot make a quality life for herself and her family.
History teaches us that very clearly.

History also teaches us that control
of women's reproductive decisions equals control
over women and their access to all of what the world
offers outside of the domain of the "home and raising
babies." Anti-abortion religious extremists would
like nothing better than for all

women, most particularly white women,
to go home and take care of hordes of babies. (Ricki
Solinger discusses the issue of race and motherhood
in he book, "Wake Up Little Susie, Single Pregnancy
and Race before Roe vs. Wade", 1992 and in the book,
"Abortion Wars" in the chapter Pregnancy and Power
- 1950-1970, published in 1998.) Lynn S. Chancer,
in From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom: Transforming
a Movement, 1990 stated it this way. "Feminists
remain on the political defensive-unless, that is,
we become appropriately infuriated at the thought
of exactly whom and what anti-abortionists are trying
to exclude, whom they are trying to control. Clearly,
control is aimed at women as a whole. The ire of
the anti-abortionists cannot be understood outside
the context of a larger sexual and cultural reaction
to feminist gains, terrifying precisely because
they have opened a Pandora's box with the promise
that the traditionally gendered world may never
be the same again."

Randall Terry, the originator
of the militant Operation Rescue ...
sees the economic and social freedom of women as the root
cause behind abortion
...his avowed goal is to put the genie of equality back in
the bottle

Lawrence H. Tribe, in Abortion the
Clash of Absolutes, 1990, spoke of Kristin Luker's
study which revealed, he said, "that in general,
right-to-life activists believe that men and women
are different by nature and that they have intrinsically
different roles to play in society. Luker found
a fear among many such activists that the incorporation
of women into traditionally male roles in the workplace
threatens to strip women of the role that is uniquely
and properly theirs. Indeed, those who most violently
oppose the pro-choice position make an explicit
connection between such opposition and their desire
that women be put back in their traditional roles.
Randall Terry, the originator of the militant Operation
Rescue, sees the logic behind abortion rights as
a force that would destroy 'the traditional family
unit' and 'motherhood.' But," continues Tribe, "whether
Terry sees the economic and social freedom of women
as the root cause behind abortion or sees abortion
rights as freeing women to lead lives as full participants
in the economy and in public life, his avowed goal
is to put the genie of equality back in the

bottle. Whether in the name of traditional
sex roles or in the name of a traditional sexual
morality, much opposition to abortion seems really
to be about the control of women."

Tribe concludes his book with this,
"To the pro-life advocate, it may become clear in
the end that at a deep level, the opposition to
women's having the right to choose to end a pregnancy
is more about the control of women than about the
sanctity of life or of nature. If this is so, then
opposition to a right to choose seeks to restrict
the liberty of unwilling women in the name of something
less than the 'absolute' of the protection of human
life. And if this is the case, then even the pro-life
advocate may conclude that the objection to abortion
rights ought to yield, as a matter of morality,
to the claim of the woman to her liberty and equality.
To conscript a woman to save a life might be one
thing. To conscript her to save a way of life, one
in which she is relegated to a second-class role,
is another thing entirely."

Over turning Roe vs. Wade ...
only makes
abortion more dangerous for women.

In addition, any individual playing
with a full deck knows that making abortion illegal
will not stop abortion from occurring. Since the
beginning of time, law not withstanding, women have
made life-threatening sacrifices not to have a baby
they are not emotionally or financially prepared
to raise. Over turning Roe vs. Wade or so restricting
access, in any manner, as to effectively do that,
only makes abortion more dangerous for women.

Today, in the 21st century, should
abortion become illegal, more women than before
Roe, especially young women, will opt to self-abort
and will place their health at great risk and many
will die. Others will opt for a back-alley abortion.
If lucky, these women will find an abortion provider
who provides safe abortion services today, who will
be willing to risk everything to go underground
to provide safe abortion health care services to
women. Those women will not place their health and
life at great risk. Other women will find an underground
"provider" who has little or no medical training
and those women won't just be placing their health
at risk, but more likely than not, they will lose
their lives.

Because abortion will exist as an
alternative to an unintended pregnancy whether it
is legal or

not, making abortion illegal won't
save "babies" lives as anti-abortion extremists
pretend. And they know that. They just don't want
to admit it or discuss it. In addition what they
also know but ignore, is that illegal abortion places
women's lives at risk that today are not at risk.
For that reality, anti-abortion extremists have
no answer. It really is a case of out of site -
out of mind.

And, in addition, we'll see more abandoned
babies and dead babies, especially by young teen
girls. Desperate, scared young girls and women,
without financial resources to obtain an illegal
abortion or raise a child, will do desperate things.
Ironically, several states, my own state of Colorado
included, have written laws in recent years that
either makes the accountability for abandoning a
child either non-existent or barely existent, if
the child is taken to a hospital, police or fire
station. This type of legislation is an outgrowth
of the dramatically shrinking access to abortion
in the last 20 years, from availability of providers
nationwide to laws that place an undue burden on
women's right to seek an abortion. It is also an
acknowledgement that unwanted babies given birth
to by scared unprepared young girls and women, is
on the rise and of deep concern to our society.

Anti-abortion extremists will never tell
you that a choice to parent
or give up a baby for adoption is fraught with no less emotion,
conflict
or potential serious consequences than a decision to have
an abortion.

The other related and unspoken truth
that anti-abortion rights people try desperately
to ignore and won't discuss is the truth and reality
about adoption, their only answer to an unintended
pregnancy in which parenting is not an option. Anti-abortion
extremists will never tell you that a choice to
parent or give up a baby for adoption is fraught
with no less emotion, conflict or potential serious
consequences than a decision to have an abortion.
The children who are neglected, abused and living
in poverty are proof. So are the emotional stories
about birth moms and the children they gave up for
adoption.

I, like every other abortion rights
individual I know, believe that all three options
to an unintended pregnancy are viable moral options
and which one is ultimately decided on must be decided
by the woman faced with the decision. It cannot
be any other way. It would be immoral to force a
woman to continue a pregnancy just as it would be
immoral to force her to end her pregnancy.

I like every other abortion rights
individual I know, believe that prevention is worth
a pound

of cure. We believe that abstinence
is the best form of birth control. But for individuals,
men and women alike, who choose to engage in sex,
we believe pregnancy and disease prevention should
be of paramount concern. Many anti-abortion religious
extremists don't believe in any form of artificial
birth control and their so-called crisis pregnancy
centers won't refer women to physicians who would
provide them with birth control information or birth
control pills and devices. For these individuals
it's abstinence or nothing. These anti-abortion
religious extremists are out of touch with not just
mainstream America, but with reality.

Lawrence H. Tribe, speaking in his
book, again about Kristin Luker's study of abortion
and motherhood, said, "Believing that an important
and natural function of women is the bearing of
children, such right-to-life activists (themselves
often women) evidently believe that abortion and,
indeed, all methods of fertility control subordinate
the special value of pregnancy and the uniqueness
of the woman's natural place. These activists accordingly
oppose artificial means of contraception that interfere
with the unpredictable possibility of pregnancy."

anti-abortion extremists promote the criminalization
of abortion in all circumstances...
they are adamant that no artificial birth control should be
legal or used by anyone

From the Horses Mouth

"We are totally opposed to abortion
under any circumstances. We are also opposed to
all forms of birth control with the exception of
natural family planning (the rhythm method)."
- Judie Brown, American Life Lobby.

"At its core, birth control is anti-child.
You consummate your marriage as often as you like
and if you have babies, you have babies."
- Randall Terry, founder Operation Rescue.

The Pearson Foundation Manual on how
to start and operate your own "pro-life" outreach
crisis pregnancy center, explicitly instructs counselors
"never to counsel or refer for artificial contraceptives
or sterilization."

Catholic Values Investment Trust will
not invest in companies that manufacture contraceptives
or abortion equipment, even

removing the drugstore Rite Aid from
its investments because the store sells contraceptives.
And the Timothy Plan opposes companies that make
contraceptives and abortion products, including
insurance companies that cover abortion.

So, anti-abortion extremists promote
the criminalization of abortion in all circumstances.
That position places women's health and life at
risk from unsafe medical care, but they don't care.
What a bummer, they say, that's her problem. (Of
course you'll note that not one "daddy" risks his
health or life in the back-alley. That's a bummer
too, isn't it?) Anti-abortion extremists also know
that not one "baby" will be saved when abortion
happens on a woman's bathroom floor or in a back-alley.
Additionally, they are adamant that no artificial
birth control should be legal or used by anyone.
And they want us to believe that this is about "babies"
lives, not controlling women's lives?